


After the Fall, Before the Rise

by Anbrin, rudluff, xama



Series: After The Fall, Before the Rise [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Canon Temporary Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illiteracy, M/M, Multi, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anbrin/pseuds/Anbrin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudluff/pseuds/rudluff, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xama/pseuds/xama
Summary: After End Game, the Avengers realized that for the sake of their health, the world, and their lives, they had to band together. Tony Stark, with his foresight, had not only killed Thanos and his army, but also brought back Loki, Asgard and most of it's citizens, Xandar, and a few other people.The world, nay the universe, copes. It's finally over, for Tony Stark's snap had also brought an enforced 4 years of peace. The Avengers had time to heal, the universe had time to heal. And heal they would, but the road was a rocky one.





	After the Fall, Before the Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by Endgame. My siblings and I wrote this, we were just so inspired. Endgame brought up a lot of questions for us, questions that we felt needed answering. I hope we've articulated our thoughts in a meaningful way, this was a powerful journey for us, and I hope for you as well. -Xama
> 
> We put a lot of thought into this, sometimes I think we put more thought into it than was put into Endgame. We worked hard, and I'm honestly surprised we finished it so soon. There were a few plot threads we didn't tie up exactly, and a few ideas that we had that didn't pan out, but on the whole I'm satisfied. -Anbrin
> 
> Honestly, I just love Loki. Don't get me wrong, he's not the only character I love, but he's one of my favorites. I'm not some Loki fangirl, I know he has flaws, and I think we did a good job in showing them. -Rudluff

It was a beautiful day in Stark Industrial Tower. The Jarvis saw to that as it was the job of the Jarvis program. Loki knew a little bit, not that much though. Not enough, nearly. A bird chirped loudly and Captain America thought of his plane crash. It would be a long day.

Loki had been captured the previous day. Apparently when Iron Man sacrificed himself to unsnap everyone, that had included Loki. He had floated in space for a time before being picked up by Captain Marvel, who was completely unaware of who he was. She took him back to Earth and the Avengers took it from there.

“Loke”, Iron Stark said in a somber tone, “we know Thanus slapped your anos, please talk to this therapist I keep on staff in case my PTO goes nuts.” Iron Stark was of course the AI son that Tony “the woobie” Stark made shortly before going on a time travel extravaganza tour and hugging his dad weirdly. 

“To find the truth you must search the undocumented past, to find the past you must search the future, and in the future you will find yourself actualization.” The infinitely wise Peggy (and beautiful) Carter said this before momentarily pausing and then acting exactly the same way that she did when Loki first walked in, convincing Loki that she was in fact a video game NPC. (this is how marvel consistently treats anyone with dementia/alzheimers btw it’s wild) 

Loki did not want to hear what the humans had to say. He’d obeyed and knelt and snivelled enough at the Mad Titan’s knee, and now he wanted to shut himself away in his own thoughts. Even after all he had gone through, even though he had tried so hard to reconcile with Thor after Thor made it clear that he was tired of Loki’s antics, he was just another thing to be cast aside into the dungeon. The dungeon of perpetual self-recrimination.

“Mister Loki, please have some juice.” An unusually eager boy in a red gridded suit offered him a large glass. This prison was Hell. Loki accepted the juice, sneering.

“What would you know of death!” he exclaimed, suddenly flipping over and vomiting blood profusely.

“Mister Loki,” said the boy seriously, “you don’t feel so well.”

After Loki cussed out every inhabitant of the tower for 45.2 minutes, he was tired. He just wanted Odin to behead him. He quickly opened a telepathic stargate link with Odin, but then he realized that Odin was completely dead. He looked into the link and saw Hel’s corpse staring back at him, woops. He closed it again.

“Thank you for bringing my planet and parents back, by the way,” said Thor to Iron Man. 

Loki was enraged. How dare Thor bring up his strained relationship to his father like this? He went back to his quarters, outfitted with $10,000 blankets, his own personal chatbot in the form of Jarvis, as much food as he could devour, and seethed about his miserable fate. Why hadn’t they just left him to dead?

“Loki,” said Captain America very seriously, “Post Traumatic Order is a serious disease.”

“I am trying to sleep,” said Loki wearily, his voice nearly exploding from the strain of every one of his muscles vibrating at once.

“You should be sure to take care of yourself,” said the Captain knowingly, “because Thanos sure did not.”

“Hey guys did you know that Captain Marvel just flew by? She’s very importantly saving the entire universe off-screen, just so you know. She is very integral to our universe, that’s why nothing she does is ever shown or described in detail.” Clint ‘exposition’ Barton, the team’s resident convicted serial killer, said apropo of nothing. He was still sad that the team’s only female who wasn’t a white-washed neo-nazi had died randomly for no reason.

Loki got up and went to the kitchen on the 37th floor of Stark tower (the one on the left of the diagram in chapter 1) and began to make a peanut butter, cream cheese and peanut butter and garlic on pumpernickel sandwich.

As he was making the sandwich, behind him he heard Spider Man and Iron Man cavorting. The sound enraged him. Surely the smaller man must be the son of the older, more hideous man. As he ruminated on this, he heard something that shook him to his very cold, blue, ice giant core.

“Potato.”

This was the word that Tahnose; had used to train him: to torture him - to bend, Loki to his everlasting will! The world spun around like Loki was on a “Tilt A Hurl” with no end station. He tried to call his magic, but the entire Tower was warded to keep him peacefully.

He did the only thing he could. He grabbed the cheese grater he was using on the cream cheese and held it against his head. Noticing the confused looks of Enoby Maw -- no, Iron Man -- and Gammorah -- no, Spider Man -- he realized what he had to do. Loki turned himself into a rather small wheel of cheddar.

“Potatoes are the greatest.” Said Blacker Panther, Black Panther’s American cousin who had also been brought back by Tony Stark’s snap of heaven. Blacker Panther was Muslim, because he was Malcom X.

“Don’t make me do it!” Loki cried, and his voice was unusually shrill, even to himself. But then again, he had never heard the voice of a cheese before, so he could not be sure it was unusual.

Killmonger jumped up, and hit his head on the ceiling. Captain America said “What the fuck?” before throwing his shield at Loki, knocking him out. Killmonger sheepishly said “sorry, it was my PTO.”.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Black Wideow. “I have PTO because they took the thing most important to me.”

“Your womb?” said Bruce Banner, who was also getting therapy.

“No,” she said, “My acting skill. Then again -- no, my character.”

“Actually they took her identity. You think she’s Russian? With that accent? She’s clearly Vietnamese.” Jarvis was feeling brutal today.

When Loki awoke, he was glistening. Three pounds of cheddar were too many, but 30 pounds were not enough. Glistening with the remainders of his tears, his blood (from where the Captain’s shield had hit him), and with the sweat of the labor of turning himself into a cheese.

Suddenly, it was revealed - Steve Rogers had gone back in time to fulfill his dream. He had married Peggy Sue, Howard Stark, and Dwight Eisenhower in a ground-breaking polygamous bisexual but mostly gay marriage. The man wearing the Captain America suit today was Happy Hogan, because he pulled the short straw. Bucky and Sam were taking a break in Tahiti because they were not paid enough to deal with Tower Bullshit.

Suddenly, everything changed. Thanos came back. And when the world needed him most, he vanished again. These are their stories. T Then he came back again.

The story you have just been told is true, the names have not been changed because no one is innocent. LEast of all Thanose van Halen.

“I want a lobster?”

“What?” Thor said in a drunken slur.

“You don’t understand my life, all my life I have been living my life and not your life! You don’t understand what my life has been like being lived by me who has lived it!” Wailed Loki in a sob where he told his deepest truths of the heart.  
His total Eclipse.

every now and then I get a little bit lonely  
And you're never coming 'round

Loki thought about the Grandmaster. Grandmaster was the only person in the Universe who had accepted him at face value for what he was. Yes, that happened to be a backstabbing, weird-looking, shapeshifting, greasy rather dim bloke, but cor blimey, sometimes you just needed a little luv.

Random use of candles, empty bottles, and cloth  
And can you see me through this fan?  
(Slo-mo dove)  
Loki, through shape-shifting, knew that sometimes he was obscured. He knew that his brother stood in his light and cast a shadow bigger than tall. Taller than fat. Fatter than bigg. It was a hard shadow to live behind and through.

Creepy doll, a window, and what looks like a bathrobe  
Then, a dim-lit shot of dangling balls  
(Metaphor?)

In Asgard, they did not consider Loki a true. Man. Partially that was because Loki was not a man, but an icicle. But even when he toomk shape of aesir man, he was considered as a weak magic user in comparison to the blustering and bearded Thor. And he wished that he could be seen as a potent even too.

Close-up of some candles and dramatically poosing  
Then, stock footage of a moon in the sky  
(Bottle shot)

Loki had been to the outer reaches of space on multiple occasions, but rarely to the inner reaches. Asgard had a moon, Loki knew, but he had never visited. And now Asgard was gone, but it was back, but he did not know if it was the same. Because it was gone. All it would be, to him, would be stock footage. Because he had never been there.

Messing up my close-up of with a floating blue curtain  
Now let's see who's coming in from outside  
(Double doors open)  
Why aren't I reacting in this shot?  
(Ringo Starr? Lined eyes)  
Guess I should be acting but I’m thot  
(Door's ajar) Wander through a hall with doors that magically open  
And this classroom has a fan  
(Open shirts)  
Now it's getting creepy You can tell by my staring  
It's a long time since I've been with a man  
(Stupid chair)  
Emo Kid is throwing Slo-Mo Dove at my face  
I guess that means he just flipped me the bird  
(Locker room)  
Staring at the swim team gets you killed by a gang  
Of dancing ninja men who know how to twirl  
(Spin around. Ninjas!)

Loki’s breath still caught in his chest when he thought of the Kittari, Thanus’s crack band of robot soldiers that he had been allowed the temrporary command of when he trie d to invade Earth. They were soulless, they were totally evil blots on space. Loki knew that even if he had succeeded in conquering Earth, Thanus would just have killed him anyway, or at least snaped him. So why had he done it? Why had he given in t o the torture?

Then a bunch of preppies make a toast  
(Drinking wine. Douchebags!)

Fandral. Hogun. Lady Sif. Etcetera. Thor’s entourage, the epitome of manliness. Especially Sif. The truest expression of Asgard’s manliness. Especially Sif. Loki had been castigated and castrated but only figuratively. The truest expression of Asgard’s culture was of course the beer hall, where they would toast and regale their manly experiences besting beasts that were made to be bested. Loki never had any of those stories, because he was a vegan. He only ate meat that could think for itself.

[Chorus]  
Most of it just ends up on the floor  
And they shouldn't fence at night  
Or they're going to hurt the gymnasts  
Why do they play football inside?  
Here's another shot of fencing  
And I've mostly been lit from behind  
Watch these shadows run off

Wikipedia defines Post-traumatic order as “Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in how a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response.[1][3] These symptoms last for more than a month after the event “ (Source: Wikipdia.)

I walk onto a terrace, where I think I'm alone  
But Arthur Fonzarelli's got an army of clones  
(Fonzi's been cloned!)  
They do the Macarena  
But I'm still not impressed  
They beg for me to dance with them  
But not in this dress!  
I'll pose like Rocky tonight!  
I'm running up a bunch of stairs  
(Strip football and surprise mirror!)

[Post-Chorus]  
Here's where I pretend to be Eva Peron  
Look at me, I'm lifting my arms  
There's nothing else to shoot  
So just zoom the camera under this arch

Loki was tired of having to have lived the life that he had had to live, the life that had been laid out for him, and he wanted the limelight. He had wanted fame -- to live forever, higher. He had wanted to learn how to fly high. But no matter what he had done, it was for nothing, it was not even notable. What had he accomplished? Killing a few hundred humands before his ignominnis capchur at the hands of Iron Skulk and Captain Bigshot.

Leaning on myself because there's two of me here  
But now, there's only one in this shot  
I pull my feathered hair  
Whenever I see floating cloth

Wikipedia defines narcissism as “the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's idealised self image and attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Narcissism is a concept in psychoanalytic theory, which was popularly introduced in Sigmund Freud'” (Source: Source.)

[Interlude]  
[Woman]  
Ooh, ooh, oooooh, I've gotta use the bathroom but the door's locked! Can you help me?  
[Man]  
I’ll open the door for you. *grunts*  
[Woman]  
Oh thank you sir! How can I ever repay you?

No matter how far he fell, he knew Thor would chase after him, try to save him. Was it even worth it ? Was Loki irretrievably weak, an object for other people to define themselves in relation to? No matter how much he tried to change himself, be thankful for what Thor did for him, for every door that was opened to him, Loki felt like two others shut.

[Man]  
How about a towel?  
[Group]  
Hey guys check this out! Whoa. (Hey don't do that dude! Come on!) Wait, it's supposed to take the cloth & leave everything else on the table! I don't know what happened. Not like that, it's the other way! (Yeah, pull it like that!) No, Stop! You're making it worse!

Loki remembered when he let Frost Giants into Thor’s banquet and ruined everything. The first of his many failed plans and plots to prove Thor’s inability to rule, and his own superiority. But he could no longer hide it, even from himself, and wept bitterly, thinking of the grater.

[Accented man]  
Alright which of you preppies put gold dust in my fencing mask? *laughter*  
[Woman]  
Hey, this isn't the ladies’ room!

[Verse 2]  
(Blind possessed choir boys.)  
Get out of my way! I've gotta pee!  
(Zombie cult?)  
(Aah flying altar boy!)

Loki envied ron man’s ability to fly, and decided that once he was able to use magic again he’d hex Iron man’s socks to be extremely heavy, so he couldn’t fly anymore.

Never mind. I just went on the floor!  
Now I need to find a mop!  
(Look at me now!)  
Emo Kid wears too much make-up  
Now watch a bunch of half-naked guys  
(Hairless chests)  
As they dance around in diapers  
And I've joined the Glee Club of the Damned  
(Reference joke!)  
Look the fog machine's on!  
What kind of private school would let in these kind of guys?  
It started out as Hogwarts, now it's Lord of the Flies!  
(I hated that book.)  
I'm swaying side to side  
These dancers need to stop  
The gayest man on earth would call this over the top!

In Asgard, it was illegal to sodomy. But only for the man who sodomized, not the sodomizee. Loki was sad, because he was a top. So he could not be over the top because it was illegal to be a top over the top. That was sad. To hear, it was sad. Because the penalty for breaking the law was to have his mouth sewn shut. It made him sad, because he liked his mouth.

[Chorus]  
I whip my head to the right!  
I'll never go to church again  
I think I lost a contact lens  
When did spazzing out qualify as a dance?

Kneeling like I want to throw up  
What the effing crap?  
That angel guy just felt me up!

lOKI WAS EXTREMELY LONELY AND MISSED WHEN HE AND GRANDMASTER WERE INTIMATE. (I WOULD GO INTO MORE DETAIL BUT IM TYRING TO KEEP THIS FIC RATED T.).

Here's a line of guys. I was wearing a dress  
But now they've got me wearing a suit  
One kid's running late  
I think he's too young for this school

In their first year of school, Loki had been so eager, so willing to believe he was the equal of Thor and the other children, despite the fact that he was half their size and twice as acidic. But what riled at him the most, what made him chomp at the bit, was their total lack of acceptance of his extremely critical shapeshifting and personal expression. It was not his fault that he felt the need to become a very fat smelly lizard during math class. It was their problem for not stocking lizard uniforms just in case, or perhaps a crack tailor. And anyway… Thor couldn’t read, so why wasn’t he good enough? Why was he always expected to work twice as hard to get no recognition?

I'm totally shaking his hand  
(Mullet with headlights?)  
(Over-surprised guy. Weirded out. Oohweeeoooh)

“When I was born, I was cast out, because I was born in a society where they don’t like pregnancies.”

“What the fuck?” Said Spiderman, who was immediately beaten for swearing, as he should be. Swearing is the devil’s portal into the mind of the youth and it rots away your teeth with your soul.

“Loki does not know of what he speaks, because he was not actually raised by Jotuns. He knows nothing of them, really, I know more than him. And I know nothing, because I don’t know how to read.” Said Thor.

“So he’s talking out of his ass, basically.” Said Tony Stark’s brain tumor son. 

“No, Sir Stark, I am talking out of my mouth.”

“Where do you poop from, Mister Loki?” Peter Parker.

“You have made your point, yes I was talking out of my ass, pleaese never speak of this again Thor will be traumatized in the way I do not want him to be.

(.)(.) boobies

Black Widow felt like she had feelings. This was a new feeling for her because she had had a lobotomy when she was 3 years old.

Hulk came down the stairs and he was angry because he was always angry.

Hulk tried to soothe Loki, who was clearly having a bad day. He brought him a coconut. Loki accepted tococornut, but when he looked up to see who had given it to him, he screamed and tried to hide. Hulk felt bad, if he had only known that Loki’s father was a war criminal, he would have been sure to whip him around hard enough to break his neck and put him out of his final misery!

Peter Quill woke up smelling like space weed, because he had been asleep on a massive pile of interstellar kush. Space weed was regular weed but in space. He was very happy, because he had recently bagged the hottest ass in the universe - Loki’s ass. It was very consensual, thank you very much, Starlord wasn’t like that. But yeah, nice semi-Norse God ass. Good shit. He pulled out his space bong and took a toke, because he was happy, then he went out into Avengers Tower proper.

“Oh shit, what is this, okay I didn’t sign up for this, I’m going to put in my headphones and pretend this isn’t happening ok?”

“Sounds good” Said Ant-Man, who had been in the awkward position of getting ready to jump into resurrected Thanos’ anus, said.

Suddenly, a important news came of the Stark Tower computer. It was a new invasion of earth and all of the heroes would have to help each other to defeat it. But could they hold hands together and destroy new this threat? Probably not.

At the head of the invasion was Grand Master, and they knew what they had to do. Every Avenger was easily knocked out, not by his army, not by his powers, not even by his stick. They were knocked out because they fainted because he was so hot.

Finally the only one left standing was Loki. He begged grand master to spare earth. Grand Master did not want to because it was the only planet dumb enough for Thanos to want to go there, but after they rekindled their very passionate romance, Gramdnaster’ decided that he could spare earth as long as Loki was there to make sure that they did not go too far ever again.

And so, with a final farewell, Grandmaster said to his most audacious and pugnacious of lovers: “G to the R to the A the N to the - ah, you get it. Uh, well, farewell Loki. Till we meet again, you delicious frozen piece of tail. Salutations, earthlings! Ciao.” He dissapeared in a cloud of glitter.

“Did he get the Chaos Emeralds though?” Queried Thor.

“Thor, please, stop referencing your weird religion, I’m all for diversity, but not that. For me, please.” Said Hulk Banner, Thor’s lover and sometimes therapist.

“Religion is good, for the soul and for the mind. Religion, I abide.” Vision had been weird ever since they brought him back and used a toaster power supply as his main source of power supply.

“What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

” Visoin chimed in, in a fit of PTO  
There are two Vision, now. The Vision of the past, and the Vision of the future. Both are robots, both want to fuck Wanda Neo-Nazi. It’s sad.

There is also the Vision of Wakanda, but she is a woman and a human, her name is Shuri, and she is kick-ass. She is Black Panther’s sister, and Blacker Panther’s cousin. She won’t be appearing here, just know she exists, and saves the universe with Captain Marveiel.

 

Daydreamin’ heads in the sand  
Daydreamin’ gee but it’s grand ( grandmaster)  
I’m in love with an Ostrich  
All the people stare but I don’t care cuz she loves me  
Can’t help it if they don’t udnerstand it  
It’s fun to be in love with an Ostrich  
...et cet c etc 

Thor, he was an Ostrich. But Loki loved him, as a brother because that is what they were, even for being an ostrich. Because his head was in the sand. Every day at the building of schooling, when they went there together because Thor was mentally deficient even though he was 300 years older, Thor did not notice that all of Loki’s classmates were beating him up, because he was too busy playing blocks with the 2 year olds.

 

Friend, only the lips are rusty  
Do not say anything now Do not say anything

Iron Man’s empty husk was left out on the battlefield as mark of honor, but Cpatain America could not jsut leave him be. Afte rPeggy Sue died, he went to see his truest lover every day, and every day, he kissed that degrading shell one more time.

Two men lying in the dark  
A cigarette smoking while staring at the ceiling  
Until yesterday you are on a pilgrimage  
It seems to have come back today.  
If you get stuck, you'll sleep Sleeplessly  
But now nothing is said

Friend, I can't tear that tear  
Do nothing now Do nothing  
After a long time two men in the middle of the night  
A cigarette that sucks while rubbing your fingertips  
Although your personality changed because of love  
Seems to be the original again today  
If you get stuck, sleep  
But do not do anything now

[repeat last 2 lines]

The antithesis to Loki’s heart was his mind.

The antithesis of Loki’s heart was his mind. And Loki, he had a ticket to ride. He had a ticket to riiiide. He, he had a ticket to ride. Did he care? No.

 

He couldn’t stop this feeling deep inside of him. He could not stop that feeling, what it did to him. Ooh! Gah! Chugga! Lips as sweet as candy.

“Loki, are you okay?”

Thor. “My Brother, what has happened?”

“You blacked out. We had just gotten you back to the Tower after being resnapped by Friend Stark, are you well?”

Loki could barely keep the resemntment out of his voice as he replied. “I don’t feel so good.”

-

Tony Stark woke up screaming. He looked to his left. He looked to his right. Hookers. He looked at his cool glow-in-the-dark watch. Oh shit it was 1987. He was 17. He called the police because the hookers just fucked a 17-year-old. He was about to finish his third doctorate at MIT. He had depleted the local supply of hookers with this last batch. The local prison was full though.

The police came, but it was okay because the hookers were actually senators. Tony guessed that anything was okay when you needed campaign money.

Anyway, Tony decided to parse the really detailed dream he had just had. His parents had died in a car crash, but they had been killed by a WWII veteran who had been turned into a Soviet-Nazi assasin. Captain America had come back in time to the future to keep this information from him. He had a son who wasn’t actually his son that he snapped to bring back, but doing it took him away from his daughter who he was actually raising and being a father to, not just an irresponsible uncle figure. There was a big purple guy who wanted to kill half of everyone because he’d failed at basic arithmetic. A race of extremely advanced Norse Gods existed, and their crown prince couldn’t read, out of choice. 

Tony Stark thought for a moment.

Ok, yeah, Rhodey was right, he probably needed therapy.


End file.
